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Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

theverge.com

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Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#121

Post by kstrauser »

paulcole wrote: post #106
ribosometronome wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally altering the way the picture is shown without anyway to revert to the original functionality is obviously a severe deviation from how the product was originally sold. It's akin to not having blue anymore.

But it's not akin to not having blue anymore. Not having red anymore is akin to not having blue anymore. Having the video play in a way you personally dislike is perhaps upsetting to you, but it's a TV and the video still plays.

So if it downscales to 512x288, your contention is “the video still plays” even though the quality is horrid. If not, what do you imagine the important distinction to be?

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#122

Post by thfuran »

paulcole wrote: post #115
throwway120385 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality" is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for. If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day when a software update removed my ability to play FM radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for me. I personally continued us…

> If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? Maybe they don't care about running afoul of these laws? Or feel that they are on solid ground? > The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use. But neither of those things happe…

I can understand not caring about motion smoothing, but I cannot fathom being totally okay with manufacturers being able to retroactively change features of a product after you've purchased it and without your consent. Would you not mind if your car got an over the air update and suddenly had a governor at 70 mph and half the acceleration? Would you be okay with your airpods suddenly deciding that they can only pair with sufficiently new apple devices? Any change that would materially affect the purchase price or decision to purchase absolutely must not be imposed unconditionally after purchase. It's fraud with extra steps.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#123

Post by strunz »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #84

Can you be a film purist and buy a Roku TV? I mean come on - Snark aside, the mistake was thinking the TV was yours as opposed to an advertising vehicle for its makers to use to extract further value from you. Don't feel bad, I was the victim of the same with the Nvidia Shield. Looking at you Android TV.

I felt the same way reading this, though I felt like a patronizing douche. If you buy a TCL or bottom rung TV and expect it to cater to cinephiles, you're just begging to be let down. (Not that there's any excuse for this shitty anti-consumer behavior from Roku)

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#124

Post by madeofpalk »

paulcole wrote: post #115
throwway120385 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being unreasonable. "Acceptable quality" is whatever a reasonable person accepts an argument for. If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? I remember back in the day when a software update removed my ability to play FM radio on my phone and that was certainly frustrating for me. I personally continued us…

> If Roku doesn't want to run afoul of these laws perhaps they should make these kinds of features optional instead of forcing them on people? Maybe they don't care about running afoul of these laws? Or feel that they are on solid ground? > The whole point of these laws is to prevent manufacturers from squeezing people by making products that fail early, or that are difficult to use. But neither of those things happe…

> dismayed with their purchases

Software updates throw a spanner in the works.

They were not dismayed with their purchase - presumably they liked the product they bought. Then Roku changed their purchase through a software update to something they thought was worse. The same would be true if a software update removed motion smoothing as an option if you like it.

You can understand how this is behaviour from companies - removing functionality from products through software updates - is something that pro-consumer countries might want to discourage?

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#125

Post by isleyaardvark »

jes5199 wrote: post #52

I'm in a subculture where people mostly don't own televisions (I do watch shows on my laptop, occasionally) but so I have never seen motion smoothing - is there a demo, online, like on youtube or something, that can give me a sense of what you are talking about?

This video isn’t really worth watching in entirety, but it’s one clip with motion smoothing on and off, so you can skip around to get the idea: https://youtu.be/INQrxHREmJ0?si=E5v3L-gZ__BrUHyC

This video has a longer explanation: https://youtu.be/62noXbp-l9o?si=aZqIre3sJy2SpOo7

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#126

Post by romwell »

adamomada wrote: post #119
romwell wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why Roku decided to take away the option to disable it for people who understand and notice the effect and actively don't want it ? Pardon me, it makes zero sense at all.

I was trying to say that we’re in an extreme minority; they didn’t even think more than ten people would disable it. What’s the reason that makes sense? They forgot?

There were way more than 10 people who read, commented on, and liked that Verge article.

Both your assumptions (that we're an extreme minority, and that Roku thinks that way) seem to be only supported by the conclusion you make from them.

All that said, putting the feature in enabled by default and seeing how many people end up disabling it would be how they could be grounded in reality and avoid creating a shitstorm.

Put another way, the best explanation for a metric not being collected is that it's not going to reflect well on the decision-makers.

A way more realistic scenario than what you suggest (i.e. that it doesn't hurt Roku, or even makes business sense) is that it's an outcome of a promotion-driven development.

Someone's getting a promotion for launching that "feature", and statistics that show that people turn it off the moment they realize it's there wouldn't bode well with that.

Instead, it appears that the new feature has a 100% adoption rate among the targeted userbase.

Modern problems require modern solutions, you know.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#127

Post by CamperBob2 »

hedora wrote: post #30
karmakaze wrote: post #4

I don't know what this looks like but I probably hate it. It's like the frame interpolation that some TVs had to generate 120p frames from 60p. I actually prefer the original 24p (or 24p double-exposed to 48 like cinema projectors do) for films. What really bugs me are the "Remastered" versions of songs on Spotify that sound like they were produced with today's audience in mind and doesn't sound like the original rec…

I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku. It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24 fps content. On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my iPhone camera. Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.

What are you doing for audio? That's been my big stumbling block when trying to use a newer AppleTV with an older TV and 5.1-channel amp. I've tried several HDMI audio extractors and found them all to be pretty terrible.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#128

Post by anal_reactor »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #57
bearjaws wrote: post #27

This is why I buy my TV and never connect it to the internet. Between the invasive conversation monitoring and ad spots on the menu, it's much better to buy an Apple TV / Nvidia Shield.

Nvidia Shield was one of the best purchases I ever made. I also never made the mistake of updating it like the author of the above article. If something works, and does everything you want it to do, you should never "update" it unless it is absolutely necessary. More often than not these "updates" only serve to restrict the device you own or inject more ads and spyware.

> If something works, and does everything you want it to do, you should never "update" it unless it is absolutely necessary. More often than not these "updates" only serve to restrict the device you own or inject more ads and spyware.

The fact that I agree makes me feel sad.

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#129

Post by kstrauser »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #127
hedora wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an Apple TV 4K a while back to replace my Roku. It sets my ancient sony 1080p TV to 24 fps when playing back 24 fps content. On top of that, it let me recalibrate the colors using my iPhone camera. Anyway, I bought it to reduce ad tracking, and was pleasantly surprised that it was roughly equivalent to buying a new TV.

What are you doing for audio? That's been my big stumbling block when trying to use a newer AppleTV with an older TV and 5.1-channel amp. I've tried several HDMI audio extractors and found them all to be pretty terrible.

I have a decent - not great, but decent - Sony STRDH590 receiver that serves as an HDMI switcher. Apple TV and PS5 send HDMI to it, and it selects the signal to forward on to the TV.

What’s your setup like?

Re: Dear Roku, you ruined my TV

#130

Post by shiroiushi »

swechsler wrote: post #23
Zaskoda wrote: post #12

My next TV purchase will be a dumb TV.

Smart TVs are cheaper. As already mentioned in another response, just use a smart TV in dumb mode. You get the streaming providers to subsidize your purchase without you giving them any money.

>You get the streaming providers to subsidize your purchase without you giving them any money.

Exactly. My Android-based TV shows me an ad (a still one) on the home screen for some new TV show available on some streaming service, and that's it. Then I just press down-arrow a few times and another button to start Jellyfin or SmartTube.

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